Not Not Prepared

by Hannah Eschelbach

When I started to write this, I did not think “What am I even going to write about?” Now, I am not proceeding by just winging it; I had it all figured out beforehand. For you see, I am a teenager. It’s not like I don’t even know what I’m doing tomorrow night: I am completely prepared for my meticulously plotted-out future.

There is a formula that all high schoolers follow. When you are 14 or 15, you start to pick classes that will help you get into the college you want to attend, that will help you get the job you want. The average freshman girl talks about where she sees herself in ten years and what she’s going to do when she graduates from Yale. She does not talk about clothes or her friends or boys. She is already at the point in her life where she is capable of planning out her future, easily ignoring the partying and hookups and drama that all high schoolers are not subject to, and her focus is in doing her homework and finding a job so that she can pay for the university that she already knows she wants to go to and get the major that she already knows she wants and won’t change her mind about a dozen times. The clubs she joins or the sports she plays are not just fun activities that she enjoys participating in, they are ways of padding her college resume.

High schoolers already know exactly who they are and who they want to be. It does not take them several years through a frustrating process of trial and error to figure out what they want from life. They do not have any social problems; they are more than mature enough to easily resolve conflicts with each other. They never fight with their parents. They never worry about things like social status. Even if there were problems like that, students are able to deal with them because they have complete control over their hormone-caused emotions.

Yes, every single person around my age is just as well-rounded, intelligent, thoughtful and considerate as me, especially since cell phones aren’t dumbing us down! We love being teenagers! We love all our classmates and teachers and classes, all of which we want to take. We love our parents and siblings 100 percent of the time, and we have no insecurities! We are in complete control of how we feel, and we know it. And because of this, all of us, not just the anomalies, are focused and dedicated to figuring out the rest of our lives all the way up to retirement! I can’t wait to go to the college that I know how to pay for that I have totally picked out.

Hannah Eschelbach does not want to be a writer; she did very well in high school and is going to Yale for business or something smart like that.